The Wicked Cat (6 page)

“Can we just start in the shallow end?” she asked.

“Sure. But we'll have to work our way into the deep end, if you really want to learn to swim.”

“But I don't want to learn to swim. I told you that.”

“Fine. But you'll probably drown in PE then. I heard a couple of kids drowned last year. But, like I said, it's a tough PE class.”

Jessie was anxious. “Things sure weren't like this when I went to school.”

“Times have changed, Jessie,” Adam said.

They got in the water, in the shallow end, which was only two and a half feet deep. Just getting Jessie that far took all of Adam's persuasive abilities. Jessie treated the water as if it were boiling acid. But once she was in, and she saw the water was only up a little past her waist, she began to relax. But Adam didn't let her get too comfortable. He pulled her toward the deep end.

“The first day of PE,” he said, “the teacher makes you jump off the diving board.”

Jessie was horrified. “What? There's no way I'm doing that. I would sink right to the bottom. How deep does this pool get anyway?”

“Twelve feet. But you've got to do it today before you do it in PE.”

She shook her head. “No way!”

Adam spoke in a reasonable voice. “We can jump off together. You can hold my hand. If you begin to sink I'll pull you up. I'm an excellent swimmer. You'll be in no danger, and once you get over your fear you'll be able to swim laps. You'll love it; you might even start training for the Olympics.”

Jessie stared at him suspiciously. “Why are you making me do all this?”

Adam shrugged. “I'm just trying to help you out.” He added, although it was forced, “Because I like you.”

That pleased her. “Really?”

“Sure. I wouldn't say it unless I meant it.”

“Do you think I'm cute?”

Adam had never told a girl that she was cute, especially one who had been a cat for the last couple hundred years. But for Sally, he felt he had to stretch his limits.

“Yeah,” he said. “You're a kitty, I mean, a cutie.”

She hugged him and beamed. “If it means that much to you, Adam, I'll go off the diving board with you.”

But a minute later she wasn't so sure. Standing on the diving board beside him, she shook like, well,
a cat that was about to be thrown into a swimming pool. She was holding on to him so tight he started to wonder if they were both going to drown. He had to untangle her arms from his.

“Just hold my hand,” he said. “That's all you have to do.”

She looked at him with her big green eyes.

“You promise not to let go?” she asked.

Of course that was exactly what he intended to do. He needed to scare her so bad that she'd want to be a cat again.

“Don't worry,” he said, turning toward the water, four feet below them. “We'll jump on the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!”

In reality she did not jump. She must have lost her nerve at the last second, and he ended up pulling her off the diving board. The moment they hit the water, he let go of her hand. Even though she had stolen his friend's body and was a pain in the neck, he felt awful for betraying her trust in him. He knew how terrified she must be.

Jessie went straight to the bottom of the pool.

Paddling on the surface, Adam began to wonder what would happen to Sally if Jessie died. Big air bubbles were rising out of Jessie's mouth, and she
could have only so much air in her lungs. Adam could see her frantically moving her arms and legs, and not going anywhere. He decided that enough was enough.

Adam took a deep breath and dove down.

He was not exaggerating when he had told Jessie what an excellent swimmer he was. In Kansas City, where he had grown up, he swam all the time in a lake near his home. In fact, there was a tall tree that hung out over the lake, which he jumped off. So he was used to diving deep.

But the moment he reached Jessie he knew he was in trouble.

She grabbed him. But not with a normal grip.

Jessie was strong, far stronger than he was. She was like one huge cat and her hands were like massive paws. She grabbed him so tight he couldn't move his arms, which wasn't good since he was trying to rescue her. Try as he might, he couldn't break free. Inches in front of him he could see that her face was turning blue from lack of oxygen. He understood that her strength was increased by her panic. He remembered a Red Cross instructor in Kansas City saying the first thing you had to
learn when rescuing drowning people was not to give them a chance to drown you.

They were bobbing around near the bottom, but the moment Adam felt his feet really hit the floor of the pool, he pushed off with all his might. They rocketed toward the surface, and even broke free of it. But the ordeal was not over because he was still not free of her.

Because she was a girl—and he thought of himself as a protector of young women everywhere—he hated to hurt her, but he had to ram his knee up and into her gut. She loosened her grip on him and he was able to break loose. Quickly turning her over onto her back, he slipped his right arm around her neck and paddled them toward the side of the pool. Once there he forced her to put her hands on the ledge so he didn't have to hold her up. She was coughing and gagging and wasn't able to talk for a few minutes.

When she finally could speak, all she said was “Get me out of here.”

Adam helped her out of the pool and pointed her in the direction of the girls' showers. He showered and dressed but he waited a long time before she
reappeared. He expected her to come out all upset, either crying or mad at him. But when she emerged from the locker room, she was smiling as she had that morning. She walked over to him.

“That was fun,” she said.

“Almost drowning was fun?”

She punched him. “Yeah. That was the worst thing that could happen to me. Now I've gotten over my fear. I think I am going to enjoy PE.”

Adam nodded. “OK.” He had hoped the fright would be enough to end the day for her, at least as a human. He had nothing else planned. “What would you like to do now?”

She smiled. “I want to show you a cave.”

“What cave?”

“It's not far from here. Just in the hills behind the cemetery.” She paused. “Where you ran into Sally's cat yesterday.”

Adam was cautious. “How do you know we ran into the cat there?”

“Sally told me.”

“Sally told you a lot.”

“Yeah. She told me all about you guys. I know you real well.” She grabbed his arm. “Come on,
you've been deciding what we're going to do all day. Now it's my turn.”

Adam had no choice but to follow her. He still had to figure out a way to make her want to give up her human body. But he was beginning to wonder if his approach was all wrong. It had been Watch's plan, after all, and Watch hadn't even hung around to try to make it work. Briefly, he wondered how Watch and Cindy were getting along with Sally. He hoped Cindy had not taken Sally to the vet for shots.

Jessie had a thing about holding his hand that made Adam uncomfortable. Besides being shy about being seen in public so close to a girl, he was amazed by how tight Jessie could grip. He was reminded of when they had been on the bottom of the pool and she had almost drowned him. Yet she hadn't said anything to him about his kneeing her in the stomach, although he supposed he should apologize to her and explain why he did it. He didn't want her mad at him unless it was necessary.

They followed the path behind the cemetery that led into the hills. Adam tried making conversation, but Jessie seemed intent on getting to the cave. He
tried to ask a couple of times what was there but she just smiled and said that he would see. Adam began to feel nervous. He'd had a bad experience the last time he had gone into a cave in Spooksville. It had taken him almost twenty-four hours to find his way back out.

The cave was behind a tree not far from the path where they had found the cat. But if Jessie had not led him straight to it he doubted if he would ever have seen it. From the outside, it appeared unremarkable. The opening was about as tall as a grown man, but the sides were narrow. He had to squeeze through to follow Jessie, and once he was inside he didn't want to go any farther.

“We don't have a flashlight,” he said. “We can't walk too far from the entrance or we won't be able to see.”

She offered her hand. “What I have to show you is only a little way inside.”

He took her hand, reluctantly. “What is it?”

She smiled. “A body.”

He let go of her hand in a hurry.

“What do you mean?” he gasped.

“There's a body chained in this cave. Don't worry, it's been dead a long time.”

“Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better.”

She continued to laugh. “It's not an old smelly body. It's a skeleton of a kid about our age.” She stuck out her hand again. “Don't be such a coward.”

If there was one thing Adam didn't like being called it was a coward. He took her hand, even though he didn't want to. He figured he would see the skeleton, maybe touch it once, and then get out of the cave as fast as possible. The place made him feel creepy like the cat had yesterday. Like Jessie did today.

They came to the skeleton a moment later.

She was right, the guy had been dead a long time.

His bones were as dry as kindling wood and were covered with a fine brown dust. His skull was completely hollow and his eye sockets were open holes, yet there was something about his face—something in his exposed jaw perhaps—that suggested life.

He was not lying in the cave but standing, chained to the wall by his wrists. Adam figured he had been alive when he had been locked in here. Jessie answered his unspoken question.

“He was chained in here by Madeline Templeton when he was only twelve and a half,” she said. “That was two hundred years ago and she left him here to die of starvation. No one ever found out where Jack was.”

“How do you know his name was Jack?” Adam asked, although he could make an educated guess, given that he knew Jessie was probably at least as old as the skeleton.

Jessie looked at him. In the dark her green eyes seemed much brighter. They peered at him like twin emeralds, dipped in radioactive liquid. All of a sudden Adam wished he were anywhere but in this dark cave standing next to this strange girl. It was almost as if she were trying to hypnotize him. He wondered if that was how Sally had been trapped by Jessie's evil spell.

“I just know,” she said in a peculiar voice. There was almost a note of sorrow in her tone. Adam took a step back.

“I feel sorry for him,” he said. “It must have been a horrible way to die.”

Jessie nodded slowly. “Lots of people went searching for him. The whole town did. They even looked here, in this area, but they couldn't hear him
screaming because Madeline had closed up the cave with bricks.” Jessie pointed to the floor. “You see the bricks are still here. The wall just collapsed the other day. But a little cement could fix it again.”

Adam backed up another step. “Sounds like an interesting story. Why don't you tell me the rest of it while we walk back to town?”

Jessie suddenly stepped around him so that she was standing between him and the way out. She was fast, the move caught Adam by surprise.

“I would rather tell you the story in here,” she said.

Adam swallowed. “I hope it's not a long story.”

Jessie smiled sadly and her gaze was far away.

“There was a girl named Jessica,” she said. “She liked this boy Jack, the same Jack you see hanging here. But they were just children, and it wasn't as if they were romantically involved or anything. Even though in those days people did get involved much younger. Anyway, Jessica had a friend named Madeline—she was a witch. Even when Madeline was young, she was so powerful that most people in town feared her. But Jessica didn't because she had grown up with Madeline. Jessica trusted her friend, especially when her friend promised to give her
some of her power. In exchange Madeline said she only wanted a small favor. But what she didn't tell Jessica was that she liked Jack as well and didn't want to share him with anyone.” Jessie paused and then suddenly rushed the ending as if it were too painful to spend time on. “So Madeline changed Jessica into a cat, and led Jack here by telling him Jessica was hurt. And then she chained him to the wall and left him to die.” She stopped and Adam thought he saw a tear on her face. “It's a sad story, isn't it?”

“Why did Madeline kill Jack if she liked him?” he asked, curious.

Jessie sighed. “Because she realized too late that Jack would never like her the way he had liked Jessica. You see, Madeline was powerful but she was lonely as well. She was always using her power to win friends, but as a result none of her friends were real friends.” Jessie paused. “With Jessica and Jack gone, Madeline had no one to talk to.”

Adam tried to step past her. “We should tell the police about this body.”

Jessie put a hand on his chest and stopped him. “No one's telling anyone about Jack.”

Adam could feel how strong she was. “All right. We won't talk about Jack again.”

He started to pass by her again. Again she stopped him.

“You know,” she said.

“I know what?”

“Who I am.”

He shrugged. “Sure. You're Jessie. Let's get out of here.”

But she tightened her hold on his shirt. “This afternoon, the whole time, you were trying to discourage me from being a human. You made me do algebra, you wouldn't let me eat what I like, and then you tried to drown me.”

“I saved you from drowning.” He added quietly, “Anyway, you are human.”

She kept staring at him. “I am now. But as you know I wasn't yesterday.”

He forced a laugh. “What were you? A cat?”